2023 April 5-15 10-day NCL Gem Caribbean cruise

We booked this cruise for June 2021. The original booking was NYC, Grand Turk, Dominican Republic, St. Thomas, St. Martin, Tortola, NYC. The cost was $7,014.86. We booked a balcony suite, room 11574. Our cruise included 250 internet minutes, free airfare for the second passenger, $50 off the second passenger excursions, drink package and 3 upgrade restaurants.
In November 2022, the cruise itinerary changed. Grand Turk changed to Bermuda; Tortola changed to Puerto Rico. We were happy to go to Bermuda, however we have been to Puerto Rico MANY times, so we lost a country. We had to cancel and rebook new excursions for the new destinations.

We stayed at the airport Hilton on Tuesday April 4th to use their stay and park program. We had dinner in the bar. Our total cost was $450.

We caught the 4:30 am bus to the airport for our 6 am United Flight to NYC. We arrived at 8 am and caught the bus to the port. We boarded the ship at 12:30 and went to o’Sheehans for a hamburger. Our room was accessible at 2:30. The room is very clean and well appointed. However, it is located just below the arcade and children’s center, so it is very noisy. Our luggage arrived at 3:30. The sail away was in the rain at 5:00. We were able to see the Statue of Liberty, but it was very cold and foggy. We had dinner at Magenta at 5:30. We went to bed early since we were so tired.

Thursday was a sea day. We had breakfast at o’sheehans. We had dinner at Le Bistro. It was excellent.

Friday, we arrived in Bermuda. We did a minibus tour of the entire island. It was beautiful and we had fantastic weather. We had dinner at Grand Pacific.

Saturday was our 51st anniversary. We had breakfast at Grand Pacific. We ran out of Internet minutes, so I bought an unlimited package for $279. We had dinner at Cagney’s and bought a bottle of Caymus Cabernet to celebrate. We attended the show Blazing Boots.

Sunday was Easter. We had breakfast at Grand Pacific. We arrived in St. Martin at noon. We went to Maho Beach and had lunch at Sunset Beach bar. We had not been to SXM since April 2017 before the hurricane hit. It was good to be back.

Monday, we docked in St Thomas at 6 am. We had breakfast in Grand Pacific. We did the Panoramic Island tour. We had dinner in Teppanyaki.

Tuesday April 11, we docked in San Juan Puerto Rico. We toured the fort, old San Juan, and new San Juan. We had dinner in Magenta.

Wednesday April 12, we docked in Puerto Plata Dominican Republic. We toured the city then went to Ocean World. We took a cooking class and watched the bird show. We had dinner at Orchid Garden. We went to the comedy show Julia Barr.

Thursday April 13 was sea day. We had dinner at La Cucina. We went to the 70s show.

Friday was a sea day. We had dinner at grand pacific.

Saturday docked in NYC. We got off the ship and took a bus to the airport. Our 5:29 flight was cancelled. They took us to the Wyndham Garden hotel for the night. We went back to the airport. Our 5:29 flight was delayed but we did finally get to STL. We took the shuttle to pick up the car. We stopped and picked up Sunni and got home about 11.
This was not a great trip. The ship was full and had tons of children. The food was mediocre. Service was generally good, however there have been many cutbacks. I don’t think we will go on big ships anymore.

Cathy--thanks for the report. We haven't been on NCL for quite a while, but I think they have a lot of kids onboard, in general. And perhaps the week was spring break, since you said it was Easter while on SXM? We thought about booking the NCL ship which stays in Hawaii all the time, but we were concerned about the food and the service on NCL. Sorry this trip didn't work out the best for you,

any vacation is a good one....I think our tastes have changed over the years. We had 2 more NCL cruises booked and when we got home...I cancelled them.